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Do you consider the IBM PC something that pushed the envelope? Sometimes disrupting an industry by making its products available at a dramatically lower cost is
by dman 16y ago
Do you consider the IBM PC something that pushed the envelope? Sometimes disrupting an industry by making its products available at a dramatically lower cost is just as much a push to the envelope in the real world as a new discovery. (Other examples include firms like 23andme etc)
- rwmj 16y agoLook at the comment I was replying to[1]. The author of that comment was using "pushing the envelope" to mean running faster in the 100m dash or winning a Nobel prize. Disrupting an industry, as SpaceX are doing, is extremely worthwhile, but no one has ever argued that the IBM PC was some sort of breakthrough in computing, or represented progress in programming techniques (quite the opposite in fact, it was cheap and took many shortcuts, resulting in the horrible situation we have in computing today). [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2523927 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2523927
- pg 16y agoAt the time, the IBM PC was very impressive compared to the other microcomputers available.
- bane 16y agoI wonder if we'll look back at this a few years from now and say, "At the time, the iPad was very impressive compared to the other tablets available."
- Someone 16y agoThe way I remember it, the main thing it had going for it was that 'IBM' tag. Its graphics were worse than that of the 4 year old Apple II, its speed was only a little higher (certainly way of from what the 1:4.77 clock speed ratio would make you think; both ran at around 1 MIPS). Yes, it handled more than 64k RAM and was 16 bit-ish, but very impressive? Not in my memory.
- maxharris 16y agoThe original 5150 PC had a wonderful keyboard. We'd consider it very heavy and loud today (each key had a spring beneath it, and made a very audible click when pressed), but compared to the other keyboards at the time, it was easily the best.